Toshiba shifting away from consumer PCs

Toshiba has revealed its intention to shift its focus away from the consumer PC market.

The Japanese hardware manufacturer has announced that it will “accelerate the restructuring of its PC business” to focus on the business market.

This means that the company will release less consumer-focused PC hardware, which is sees as “volatile and over-dependent on sales scale and volume.”

Indeed, Toshiba has revealed that it will withdraw from certain unprofitable consumer PC markets altogether, dropping its number of sales bases by more than half.

As part of this sweeping plan, Toshiba will relocate some of its PC head office functions outside of Japan, and will shed around 900 jobs – that’s more than 20 percent of its non-manufacturing PC workforce.

This is all part of a long-term cost-cutting plan that has seen Toshiba return to profitability in recent times. The company notes that “as a result of measures initiated last year, the PC business reported positive operating income in the first quarter of this fiscal year.”

However, it also observes that “the PC market is expected to see a continuing trend to modest growth rates, and these transformation measures are necessary to support the business in securing consistent profit.”

Flatlining computer sales have affected the wider PC market in recent years. Last year, Dell experience a huge drop in profits, resulting in the company being bought back by founder Michael Dell. HP has also struggled in recent years, while earlier this year Sony sold its VAIO laptop arm.Read More: Best laptops 2014

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